Latest editions.

Nice to see Jez from Team Yakovlevs yesterday at their Henstridge head quarters to discuss new software and hardware developments for the year.

The four ship display schedule for 2012 is being prepared with some exciting pan-European events to be announced.

More info on the team here or follow them on Twitter @TeamYakovlevs

Awarded to Airbox and NATS for contributions to air safety. And now the trophy has finally turned up at Airbox HQ!

2012 Olympic airspace restrictions shown around the London area

Most people in UK aviation will be aware of the forthcoming Olympic Games and the airspace restrictions being imposed across large areas of the UK as a security measure. The major restrictions will be centered on London and the Olympic Park and will run from 14 July 2012 to 15 August 2012.

A smaller set of airspace restrictions will then be put in place for the London 2012 Paralympic Games from 16 August 2012 to 12 September 2012.

All are implemented by the Government through its paramount objective to deliver a safe and secure Games. Airspace restrictions around other Games venues will only be in place for the duration of the event at each venue, in line with those used for major sporting events.

Don’t worry however: All Airbox customers including Aware, Clarity and Foresight users will automatically be able to download the 2012 Olympic airspace restrictions to their devices ensuring they’ll have advance warnings of any potential infringement.

Those wishing to display the special CAA Olympic 1:500,000 scale charts as well as the airspace will have to either:

• Purchase or have purchased a 1:500,000 chart subscription covering the period of the Olympic restrictions
• Purchase or have purchased a CAA Edition 38 South of England chart which includes a FREE Olympic chart update
• Purchase or have purchased an Airbox GPS from January 2012 onwards

Click here to pre-order the new Edition 38 charts and Olympic charts now!

Airbox customers who use Fastplan will also benefit from FREE flightplan filing during the period of the event. It is mandatory for all pilots wishing to transit or enter the restricted zones for the period of enforcement.

Interesting track logs from the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance’s EC135 based out of Henstridge over a recent two month period.

The aircraft benefits from two panel-mounted especially adapted Foresight GPS units working in tandem. The navigator’s unit can be programmed with a route independently of the pilot’s unit and then sent through to the pilot whilst he or she is flying the aircraft.

More info on the Dorset & Somerset Air Ambulance here.

Figure 1 - Albertville Airport Showing How Terrain Enhances Approaches

Representing anything on a chart is a complex weigh-up between making the feature sufficiently prominent, but yet not detracting from the more important features. This is very much a human issue, because it’s not just about the thickness of the lines or boldness on-screen. The way the colours you have chosen contrast with the colours of other features, for example, is very important. Sometimes colours that should stand out very well, don’t, because the colours behind them or nearby distract the eye from making the all-important instinctive differentiation.

The eye can pick out an enormous range of different colours, but to make a map really effective, it has to be able to do so without the conscious aid of the brain.

Terrain information is an important part of recreational aviation. Primarily, pilots use the information for (1) Avoiding being in breach of low flying regulations (2) Scoping out landing sites to assess not only the site itself, but also the approach and (3) The all important avoidance of what is known as CFIT or Controlled Flight Into Terrain, where, usually due to poor weather or planning, an aircraft unexpectedly strikes the ground, but where the controls and propulsion of the aircraft are working normally.

Three common ways are used to represent terrain on charts (1) Colouring of the chart where high terrain exists (2) Contour lines and (3) Hill shading

Hill shading is where an imaginary light source is shone over the area, and the map is then shaded as it would be if the sun were shining on the terrain from a particular angle; this means that slopes facing away from the imaginary sun are shaded as they would be in real life. This method does not show all of the contours, because slopes facing towards the sun do not get shaded, but the principle advantage is that it gives a very natural look to the chart which is extremely easy and fast for the eye to interpret. Airbox use Hill Shading for precisely this reason, because in the cockpit, that speed of recognition is a very high priority.

Figure 2 - 1:50k Chart Showing Terrain Both Shaded and Contoured - Useful For Helicopter Pilots

Once a shading source has been chosen, the next problem is how strongly to apply the technique. For example, on charts which cover Mount Everest, but also the Netherlands, it is important neither to over-acentuate one, nor to under-accentuate the other. The only way really to get this right is to test and retest the charts until a happy medium is established. With hill shading, not only can you play with the strength of the effect, but you can also change the height and angle of the imaginary sun. A low sun, for example, will give more shading, accentuating the effect, but it also gives long shadows, and will tend to give tiny hillocks shadows which make them look far more significant than they actually are.

All comments will be reviewed by our developers.

Yak HQ is now in a brand new facility on Henstridge Airfield, in Somerset.  With modern corporate facilities, it is an ideal location to meet the team, hold your own meetings or take part in some inspiring leadership development that is based on hard earned experience.

Visit the Yakovlev’s website here

Airbox is the tool of choice for the Yakovlev Display Team, the Gnats Display Team, The Breitling Wingwalkers (SuperAerobatics), the Red Baron, Biggles Bi-plane, and O’Briens Flying Circus.

The Dorset Air Ambulance and the Scottish Air Ambulance both fly with especially adapted Airbox devices. Why? Because in a high pressure environment where there’s little margin for error, Airbox provides intuitive navigation solutions reducing pilot workload at every possible level.
Airbox Aerospace has been widely recognised for its work in aviation including:

• The Royal Institute of Navigation’s award for Technical Excellence
• The CAA’s 2010 General Aviation Safety award
• The IET Innovations Award 2010 “Highly Commended”
• The UK IT Industry Awards’ Mobile IT Innovation of the Year 2010 finalist
• The 2011 Honeywell Bendix Trophy for Aviation Safety

Why? Because at Airbox we understand the needs of pilots the world over. Our software isn’t feature-driven and we don’t shower users with cheap gimmicks. We provide comprehensive, easy to use navigation systems backed up with an un-rivalled level of customer support and service.

By choosing an Airbox product you’re making the same choice as the professionals; you’re choosing reliability, innovation and simplicity.

Shop Airbox

I still cringe at the thought that people perhaps think developing a piece of software specifically for aviation and in which pilots trust, to a certain extent, their lives, is a simple matter than can be accomplished with relative ease. I think back to the early days of frank discussions, hours of consultation with pilots from all backgrounds including rotary, fixed wing, and microlight, the heated arguments, scribbled diagrams, and endless lines and lines of computer code that went on prior to officially launching our products to the GA community.

So what’s actually involved in creating aviation software? Well for a start our GPS software contains over 1 million lines of code each carefully placed there by Airbox’s in-house team of programmers over a period of around four years. Each day more code is added and existing lines are tweaked as we strive to make our software faster, more efficient and add new and exciting features.

The seeds of the early Airbox operating system were planted in an office smaller than the one we have now as, like our million lines of code, the company has grown fast and we’ve had to move twice now to accommodate new staff and increased stock levels.

Back then there were three of us; William Moore, a pilot and engineer and co-founder of Airbox, Laurence Mitchell, a programmer fresh out of University with the keenest mathematical brain we’ve ever encountered, and myself, Tom Hedges, a non-pilot (!) but with a background in graphic design and video games; skills I’d later utilise to ensure our software makes for a seamless user experience.

Stage 1. Planning. We start by creating a wish-list of functions that extended over several pages of A4.  William, the pilot, looked at what he would need to ensure an efficient flight planning experience, I looked at how we could minimise the time taken for a pilot to extract the information he or she requires and Laurence started planning the construction of the back-end of our software, the engine that would manage the various databases of information and graphic files into a system that would run smoothly and without interruption.

Stage 2. The back-end. The team have now clearly defined what it is we are trying to build, the functionality of the unit (this will grow considerably over the next three years and beyond) and now I start concentrating on the look and feel of the product. Around this time Apple launched the iPhone and by doing so raised the bar when it came to pilots’ expectations of how navigation software should look, feel and perform. Prior to this Airbox could have launched a product range that would have been popular purely because it allowed pilots to navigate with a moving map, showing their position on screen and moving between pre-planned waypoints. Not so now as our customers expect a good looking interface, smooth map scrolling and a list of functions as long as my arm. Our philosophy has always been one of giving customers systems that really are incredibly simple to use whilst providing them with unrivalled customer support. In fact most of the new features we introduce today are born from customer feedback. Criticism and opinions are something Airbox thrives on!

Stage 3. Decisions. By now Laurence is a few months into the development of the bare bones of the software and I am busy designing each and every aspect of what the customer sees when using our GPS devices right down to the buttons, sub-menus, virtual keyboards and airspace display panels. We constantly question what we do; Does yellow and white text work better on a black background or would black text on a white background be preferable? How will a user cope with entering a Nearest Airfield destination in turbulence? Can a pilot clearly see an airspace warning in bright sunlight and how many button presses does it take to quickly enter a new waypoint? Cue much heated discussion!

Stage 4. Securing the relevant data and charts. Well if anyone can make a moving map GPS I can safely say that not everyone can secure the relevant charts with the highest levels of data integrity. We start with negotiating with the CAA to use their charts. Many other data providers wouldn’t respond to our communications until our newly appointed Chairman, Dave Clark who founded GPS company, the Road Angel Group, took up the reigns and we have access to the charts and data we require within days. European charts and beyond would come later but by then we were adept at going through the process of chart procurement! William secures a global terrain database that originates from NASA and global airfield databases soon follow. We have the data but now Laurence needs to integrate it into the program. The problem with vast amounts of information is that it can quickly slow down a device. Laurence’s math skills soon became apparent as he developed complicated algorithms designed to speed up the way in which our devices extract the data they require.

Stage 4. Early testing. We’ve been playing with the software for some time now. It’s starting to shape up nicely however we’ve not embarked on any in-flight testing and up there is the only place we’re really going to find out if our systems will be successful or not. An old friend and veteran pilot, Robs Lamplough offers constructive advice after we fly in his ex-British Army Gazelle helicopter. We send out test systems to our friends down at the British Army Air Corps who also respond with their feedback. Ruthless army efficiency that is invaluable to us for example we added the screen de-clutter button which removes all onscreen information save the map and the aircraft icon showing the pilots position. After all sometimes “you just need to use your GPS for positional awareness whilst concentrating on what’s happening outside the cockpit”.

Stage 5.  All systems go. We’re now well into the development phase and have recruited two further programmers, one of whom is a keen pilot and has already developed a successful iPad mapping application. I am overseeing the implementation of the graphics including all the menu designs and buttons complete with individually designed icons. The team now work all hours on speeding up the software and getting rid of the inevitable bugs, which periodically crop up. William is given the monumental task of taking each territory chart, converting the projection to a format that our software can utilise and then geo-referencing the chart so that it displays the users position accurately on it. He goes on to do the same with all the airfield diagrams and approach plates the company has amassed. There are hundreds and the task takes many, many hours. At this point in time the company is not generating any income and we have staff wages to take care of. The will to succeed is what keeps everyone going.

Stage 6. Final testing. We release a version of the software to a small team of pilots we call “friends of Airbox”. They report back with their experiences and go and make the relevant changes to the software.

Whilst we are continually adapting, testing and improving our software (the development phase never really ends) there comes a point where we need to tie things down, approve a version of the software fit for general release and get it out there for the GA community to use.

William and I have, by now, forged a manufacturing relationship with two factories from where the hardware will be produced. Factors such as magnetic swing from magnets used on internal speakers have to be taken into consideration as this can cause problems if devices are positioned close to an aircraft’s compass. Sunlight readability, and battery life also form important parts of the hardware development phase.

I go into graphic designer mode again and start creating packaging, adverts and promotional material for the launch whilst the team plough through the bug list and go over the airspace databases correcting inaccuracies and making last minute tweaks.

Stage 7. The First Release. The first GPS units are ready for sale, the packaging has arrived, the instruction manuals have been designed and printed, adverts placed and we experience a buzz within the GA Community with pilots excitedly anticipating the arrival of a new company with new products to the marketplace.

Because Airbox is still a relatively small company without the huge marketing budgets of the more established organizations we are still lending our hands to every aspect of bringing a device to shop shelves. This involves discussions and demos with the aviation press, managing the aviation forums, producing a stand for the launch at Aero Expo in the UK and creating a website complete with webshop to take online orders. Neither of the founders has had a day off in months but we’re running on raw, nervous energy.

Come the launch everything goes according to plan (at least that how it appears to all visitors to the stand; behind the scenes things are still chaotic as with any launch!). The first press reviews appear and all are complimentary and by day three of the show we’ve sold out of stock.

This whole process took place over two years ago and since then we’ve established a dealer network throughout Europe, South Africa and Australia and New Zealand.

The software and hardware continues to develop and we have a range of products to suit all types of pilot with chart sets for many countries. We’ve developed a complimentary PC desktop flight planner that pulls weather and NOTAM data from our servers direct to the end user and the company is looking at ever more exciting technology to make flying with an Airbox unit as pleasurable and useful as we possibly can; customer feedback forging our development schedule so that we always create products that pilots actually find useful.

The future is looking good for GA navigation!